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Editorial: Instant horse racing not good bet for Idaho

Wed., Feb. 4, 2015

Idaho legislators reconsidering instant horse racing are on the right track.

Two years ago, the lawmakers accepted the premise that the gambling devices were just a quick-paced facsimile of the real thing and would help preserve true horse racing by supporting tracks that have largely been abandoned by bettors seeking more action.

Horsefeathers.

These are slot machines, with all the noise and flashing lights intended to attract bettors and keep them in the saddle as long as possible. And as slot machines, they violate provisions in the Idaho Constitution made as recently as 1992 that ban slots or electronic machines that imitate them.

Idaho law does allow pari-mutuel wagering, the traditional way to gamble on the “ponies.” Bettors on-site and at off-track betting parlors place wagers on horses to win, place or show, or in combinations such as exactas. A track oddsmaker sets the “morning line,” but the real odds are adjusted as more or less money is bet on each horse.

Payouts are made according to the odds at about the time the horses enter the gates, with some of the money kept by the track to pay purses, etc.

How does instant racing work?

Bettors know nothing about the horses, and there are no odds in the traditional sense, at least that the bettor can see. The explanation of payouts on the AmTote International website makes that clear, but the terms of use forbid its use by the media.

To summarize: There is nothing unusual about the types of bets. But players wagering side-by-side, at the same time, would be betting on any one of 60,000 different races – not the same race. And the amount of the payout could depend on whose “horse” finishes first, no matter the race.

If you’re thinking bingo, well, Bingo!

This is a sham. But the money proposition was so alluring that legislatures in Wyoming and Oregon passed laws allowing the machines because everybody wins – machine makers, the tracks, state and local government – except the homes and businesses drained of money by problem gamblers.

Gambling itself is the problem, but governments at all levels, including tribal, have come to embrace it because they get a split of the action.

Having been taken in by an official with a gross conflict of interest, Idaho lawmakers should act swiftly before money from the machines begins to beguile, and those who have already installed them bemoan the loss of their investment. Some legislators resent the monopoly Idaho tribes have on gaming, and it is unfortunate the Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort and tribe canceled Julyamsh in response to the installation of the machines at the Greyhound Park in Post Falls.

Working with legislators to get them removed might have preserved one of the region’s singular events.

Only by twisting beyond recognition the term “pari-mutuel” could instant racing conform to Idaho’s constitution. The Legislature should fix its mistake and reassess how Idaho regulates gambling.